“I came to ACES with my child to learn more about cold-chain”
Mukandayambaje Clarisse discusses training at ACES with her baby, starting the TTT course, and setting up a ginger beer business
Mukandayambaje Clarisse is sitting in the bright sunlight, just outside of the ginger beer brewery she is helping to establish in Musanze, northern Rwanda. Light filters through the high windows of the near-empty factory behind her, faintly illuminating bright metal fermentation drums, dormant crates filled with glass bottles, and a particularly ancient red pick-up truck.
Clarisse’s nine-month-old daughter shifts on her lap as she tells me about her training at ACES. The same daughter – Clarisse has three children – was with her throughout that training; she must be one of the youngest attendees on an ACES course.
“I came to ACES with my child to learn more about cold-chain and refrigeration,” Clarisse said. Trained as a food scientist, Clarisse has worked in various food and drink companies since completing her bachelor’s in 2016. Despite this, she said: “Before coming to ACES, I didn’t know much about refrigeration. In food science, we studied food processes – but we didn’t go into how fridges work, and what to do when they stop working.”
Clarisse first heard about ACES when a close friend added an ACES training certificate to their WhatsApp status. After learning some more about the institution, she said: “I took the initiative to come and study in-depth about refrigeration.”
She completed the Foundation in Cold-Chain course, as well as further courses and workshops on temperature measurement, diagnostics, and more. “Those trainings showed me the importance of cooling,” she said.
Clarisse said she was not nervous about having Dora – her youngest daughter, then only three months old – with her throughout her training. “She was small, so I couldn’t leave her here in Musanze because it was too far,” she explained. “I had her on my back the whole time. She didn’t cry; I don’t know how she stayed quiet.”
She added: “There were no problems with the trainers or the other students. They were so happy to see me following along with my child. I’m thankful that I was allowed to come to the class and study like the others.”
Clarisse welcomed plans to add a nursery to the ACES campus: “If there is a nursery, it will help us to study without any worries about where our children are, or whether they are safe,” she said.
Clarisse is headed back to ACES this year for the Train the Trainer course, once again accompanied by Dora. “Many students applied, but by chance they chose me,” she said. “I’m so proud of my development. The training is helpful not only in this company but in daily life.”
Six months ago, Clarisse joined Viva Ltd, a new company brewing alcoholic ginger beer, as their quality control and production manager. The company has been establishing contracts with farmers and factories to source ginger, tea, sugar and other ingredients. Meanwhile, Clarisse has been focused on obtaining the necessary certifications from the Rwanda Standards Board, as well as testing their products and refining their brewing processes.
“We don’t go deep on cooling here, but we do pre-cooling before we process the ginger,” she said. “Even though ginger is not a perishable product, when you harvest it there are some losses or defects due to heat.”
She added: “Also, we need to cool the juice after cooking for fermentation to occur. It is nearly 100 degrees after cooking, but for fermentation it needs to be between 25 and 30 degrees.”
Clarisse said she sees a lot of post-harvest loss in Musanze, a major food-growing hub for Rwanda. “Here they grow tomatoes, carrots, onions and cabbage – products which have high levels of post-harvest loss because of how they are handled, transported, and brought to market,” she explained.
She hopes that the Train the Trainer course will give her the tools to “help farmers to avoid those losses”. She went on: “I will bring that knowledge back here, to other companies and farmers, and people who I meet. We need to train others so they know about cooling their produce, so they can be more sustainable.”
Clarisse said she enjoys teaching, and that it makes her happy to see others following her advice. “My mother was a teacher, and so teaching is in me,” she said. “But to teach people, you first need to get to know the people you are training. When you know the people, and what they need, you can help them do what they need to better.”
One day, she said, she hopes to pass on her knowledge to her children. “My children don’t know anything about cold-chain,” she said, laughing. “But I will teach them when they grow up, definitely.”